Leading with a LIMP!

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Paul’s comments are an upside down paradigm for the world we live in. We live in a world where people try to cover up their weaknesses and avoid failure like the plague. We live in a world of smoke and mirrors where keeping up appearances is the main priority.

The kingdom of God operates on a different principle. The Apostle Paul received a revelation of the power of weakness and as a result, he boasted all the more of his weaknesses and this bleeds through in every letter he writes in the New Testament.

I like Paul have caught a revelation that my failure is actually my success. My weakness is actually God’s strength. My brokenness is actually God’s fulness. Why? Because it’s in our weakness that Christ’s strength is fully realized. We will never know the fulness of God’s power through us until we have experienced the fulness of God’s brokenness in us.

Like Jacob and Paul we must come to a place of leading with a limp. It’s this limp that reminds us of our wrestle with God and our journey of brokenness. When you lead with a limp, you are more humble, more gracious and more powerful because you live in the knowledge and power of absolute dependance upon God. I can do nothing apart from him.

What about you?Are you allowing the master potter to mold the clay of your life or are you fighting it? The more you fight, the more frustrated you become and the further away from God’s best you travel. Run to God and let him speak to you and take your weakness and transform it into Christ’s strength. For when you are weak, then you are strong.

3 Responses to “Leading with a LIMP!”

When an individual recognises/ sees/ becomes aware of their own brokenness, it has the potential to be a highly transformative time. Especially for Christians! If fact this has to be every bit as much a significant part the spiritual property or journey for Christians as anything else they discover following Christ.

What types of transformation can take place?

Firstly the recognition that personal human strength, skill, ability, gifting, dedication, tenacity, popularity, attractiveness or lack thereof are not the qualifying or disqualifying elements God requires from his disciples. He requires a humble heart, ready to be taught and ready to learn to love and live under his influence and through his direct involvement.

This then precipitates the chance to start to see and hear what God really wants his disciples to see and hear in order to start to live life equipped to persevere this world and be a genuine light unto fruitfulness.

After reading your blog C, I can’t help but think of the teaching of Jesus where he says ‘blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’ (Mt 5:3), or another version puts it this way ‘God blesses those who recognise their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is given to them.’ What does it say about those who are rich in spirit? What would that mean? It would mean that they would probably not recognise the ultimate value or need to attach themselves to Christ. They would probably be content relying on human-centric power and human-centric self sufficency. They would be blind to their nakedness and their brokenness.

I am sure this is true of members and perhaps even ministers of churches. It is entirely possible for churches to be more about sheer human action and initiative than anything really God oriented. Most businesses these days are built upon human enterprise and they become very successful. The point is, human enterprise and initiative can lead to success, but that is a very differnet thing to God transforming and shaping and growing those connected to his vine. The church must have room for Christ at the top as reigning Lord! If he is reigning Lord then it is an absolutely natural outcome for a disciple to have to contend with their own brokenness. Again not as a means of disqualification , but rather because God uses it to realign us and help us to grow and really come alive. Healthy brokenness always points to Christ crucified but then risen. It allows for a tremendous opportunity to understand in a deeper way the beauty and mystery of grace poured out in a world like ours.

On last thing, ccntending with personal brokenness can be alienating, disorentating and it can seem like you are travelling on a path with few companions. All of these can make it seem like something has gone dreadfully wrong in a disciples spiritual journey. That is not true. To go deep with God we are often taken to new places the paths of which are only disclosed by God along the way. And along the way our more immature assumptions about faith and God get addressed, are sometimes destroyed for good purpose but in the end, if we persevere, we are transformed more into his likeness.

The thing that strikes me about that passage is that Paul doesn’t write, “When I am weak, HE is strong.” He writes, “When I am weak, I am strong.” It seems like such a huge paradox… because we are strong when we are weak… it’s crazy. It’s undeniably contradictory. But it works – because when I am weak, it’s when I rest the most on God’s strength.